Swordfish with citrus pesto and gnocchi with thyme butter

I was watching Giada De Laurentiis on the Food Network and was inspired by her Secret Garden episode. It all sounded so romantic when she talked about her childhood memories in Rome in her family's garden full of lemon trees and fresh herbs. One of the dishes she made was swordfish with citrus pesto. The fish looked so thick and juicy on the grill pan, that I was literally drooling.

I picked up one giant swordfish steak and cut it in half for two. Zack's portion turned out great but my portion was full of tough sections throughout with splotches of dark pink. I basically dumped my steak in the garbage. It's a shame too because the citrus pesto sauce was excellent! My next project: find myself a proper fish monger.

I also perused her other recipes and came across Giada's gnocchi with thyme butter recipe. I had been wanting to make gnocchi for a while now, ever since I watched Lidia's Family Table on PBS(WTTW in Chicago).

While the thyme butter was easy and delicious, I have to say that the gnocchi turned out mushy and really potato-y. I think Giada's recipe was inadequate when explaining how to make gnocchi. After dinner, I consulted gnocchi recipes in Mario Batali's book and on Lidia's webite. Their recipes were much more detailed and warned of the difficulting of making good gnocchi. Sorry, Giada, but I'm going to have to attempt making gnocchi using someone else's recipe next time!

For dessert, I made strawberry clafoutis. This is something I've been wanting to make for a while now too. About a month ago, I had bookmarked this recipe that I saw on the weekly web-only column "Kitchen Window" under the food section of the npr.org website.

The recipe called for whole blanched almonds or almonds with the skins removed. I was too lazy to blanch the almonds but I think this significantly impacts the flavor and texture of the dessert. Well, someday I'll make clafoutis again with blanched almonds and will know for sure.

I'm not sure how this dessert should really taste but it was phenomenal. Apparently, this is usually served as is, but in the land where "bigger is better", no fruity dessert like this is complete until it is topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I liked it. I think Zack liked it too because I saw him sneaking himself some more for a midnight snack.

Grilled pork chops with pineapple salsa

It's Weber time! Yes, our charcoal grill is back in action. This time we grilled some pork chops. As you can see, it's a little charred but significantly better than last time (see my grilled steak post). Good job, grill master!

I made grilled pork chops with pineapple salsa using this Epicurious.com recipe. The pork is rubbed with a simple oil and cumin mixture. The pineapple salsa was equally easy to make. I tossed together diced pineapples, chopped serrano chile, chopped red onion and lime juice. And that's it! I'm weak when it comes to chile heat so I toned it down by removing and discarding the seeds from the chile. I still thought it was pretty spicy without the seeds.

I also made a quick pasta salad with feta cheese, tomato and olives. Plus, we bought two ears of corn and grilled that directly on the grill without the husk. Yum! It doesn't need butter, salt, or anything else on it. It's so delicious with the grilled and caramelized flavor.

Zack and I had planned on seeing MI:3 but we decided to take a walk along the lake instead. We didn't really plan on it, but we walked over to Navy Pier, bought a couple of tickets, and rode on the ferris wheel and the swing ride. We even played mini-golf! It was unexpectedly fun. Btw, I totally beat Zack at mini-golf even though he claims that I cheated.

Egg salad sandwich

I had a craving for hard-boiled eggs. So for lunch, I made an egg salad sandwich.

I don't know if this is my very first time boiling eggs but I can't remember the last time that I did. I tried carefully lowering eggs into simmering water but the level of water was too high and the egg just dropped straight to the bottom and cracked. I tried again with the second egg, but the same thing happened. Yeah, I'm a quick learner. I finally came to my senses and lowered two more eggs into the water with tongs.

The cracked eggs turned out fine and one of the eggs I didn't crack actually busted open in the hot water. According to the Joy of Cooking, some cooks prick a small hole in the ends of the eggshells to prevent the shell from cracking. I figured this isn't really necessary.

Besides boiling the eggs just right, the recipe is simple. Here's my version of an egg salad sandwich.

In a bowl, add and stir well to combine:

4 eggs, hard-boiled and diced
1/2 shallot, minced
1 carrot, finely diced
2 pieces of bacon, baked until crispy and chopped
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons hummus

Place between two pieces of toasted bread and enjoy!! This was absolutely delicious and easy to make.

Strawberry and dried apricot salad

As usual, I headed home from the gym at around 9pm. I stopped by Treasure Island and picked up a couple of prepared foods including a Frontera stone-fired frozen pizza and a bag of Frontera organic lime with sea salt tortilla chips. I also picked up mixed greens, dried apricots, strawberries and minneola oranges (see my 4.21.06 post on this juicy fruit) for salad.

The Frontera chips were really good but I wasn't impressed with the pizza. It's made by Rick Bayless, so it's not surprising that it has a Mexican touch to it. The pizza had chicken chorizo and roasted peppers on it. The flavor was decent but I'm not a fan of the pizza dough. I actually prefer thin and crispy crusts over thick crusts. It may be a bit blasphemous to say this, as I am from the deep-dish pizza capital of the world.

The salad was really simple. I sliced some dried apricots and strawberries and tossed the fruits and mixed greens with a minneola-shallot vinaigrette. Simple, colorful and tasty! I'm a big fan of fruits in salad and I really enjoyed this combination of flavors and textures.

Zack's pasta dish ver.2

Zack took charge and made dinner tonight. Of course, he wanted to try making a different tomato sauce. He picked a recipe from the Joy of Cooking cookbook called the twenty-minute tomato sauce. I think it may have taken him longer than that but it was fantastic.

It had the perfect amount of spice from the red pepper flakes. The sauce had good texture too because Zack pulsed the sauce with the food processor before cooking it. Along with the garlic and herb toast that I made, it was a very satisfying meal.

Baked chicken thighs with fried artichokes and roasted pepper, corn, and pinto bean salad

Zack and I randomly picked up some ingredients from the store, including canned pinto beans, chicken thighs, and artichokes. What am I making with these ingredients? Good question.

I decided to make a salad using the beans and some peppers and canned corn I already had in my kitchen. I roasted the peppers and tossed the peppers, corn, and pinto beans together with some sour cream and red wine vinegar. This is a fantastic combination of vegetables.

I had no idea how to cook artichokes so I looked up a recipe in the Joy of Cooking and came across a fried artichoke recipe. I just trimmed, quartered and removed the choke from each artichoke. Then I coated with seasoned flour and dipped them in beaten eggs. I dropped them into a skillet of hot oil and fried them for about five minutes. The artichokes were full of flavor from the fried batter.

Last but not least, I looked up a baked chicken recipe in the same cookbook. I love baking chicken and other kinds of meat in the oven because it's easy to prepare and you just have to wait for it to bake. I basically tossed olive oil, rosemary, shallots, salt and pepper and coated the chicken thighs with the mixture. I placed them in a baking pan and put it in the oven for about 50 minutes.

I also love the fact that the whole apartment becomes filled with this rosemary garlic aroma after about half an hour of baking. The chicken came out perfectly cooked and the skin was nice and crispy. Mmm...

Le Colonial

To celebrate mother's day and my mom's birthday, my family (minus Ayaka who stayed behind on campus), Zack, and I went out to dinner at Le Colonial on Rush. It's an upscale French-Vietnamese fusion restaurant right in my neighborhood. I've been there once before and I loved it.

This night, we started off with two appetizers, the crisp spring rolls of shrimp, pork, and shitake mushroom and the soft salad rolls of shrimp, rice vermicelli, lettuce, and bean sprouts. We ordered a salad and some entrees to have a family-style meal. The dishes include cold, spicy beef salad, steamed fillets of sablefish, sautéed jumbo shrimp with eggplant in a coconut curry sauce, sautéed diced filet mignon with sate spice, yams, and string beans, and sautéed diced chicken with eggplant, mango, string beans, and cashew nuts in a yellow curry sauce.

Everything was deliciously prepared and we devoured every dish like there's no tomorrow. My mom complained that it was too dark in the restaurant and she can't see her food. Well, I liked the atmosphere and decor of the place, which is supposed to recreate 1920s Saigon.

Le Colonial
937 N Rush St
Chicago, IL 60611
(312) 255-0088

...banana in the afternoon

Of course, it's mother's day today. It also happens to be my mom's birthday... and my sister's college graduation ceremony. It's a big day to say the least. To celebrate, I was going to bake a cake for my mom and bake muffins for my sister. Well, I didn't have enough time to bake a cake but I quickly whipped up some banana coconut muffins using this Epicurious.com recipe.

I actually forgot to bring them with me to my sister's graduation but I was able to bring some to my mom's house. Mama-san, happy birthday and mother's day! Ayaka, congratulations!

Mirai

My mom and dad came to "kidnap" me (as my mom kept saying) on Saturday night because we had to get up at 5 in the morning to get to my sister's graduation on Sunday. My mom wanted to go out somewhere downtown for dinner. I've been wanting to try Mirai for a while now, so I made reservations there.

The food was really good, especially the chutoro sashimi. I also like the grilled scallop on top of a bed of arugula. We ordered a couple of makimono like the unagi trio and the fried softshell crab roll. The unagi was on the sweet side but very soft and delicious. Along with the softshell crab inside the roll, they placed a generous portion of it on top of the roll. While the decor was chic and trendy, it didn't impress my parents too much. They kept saying that the place caters to American taste. I think they would rather just go to Daruma, their regular hangout for Japanese food. With drinks and tip, the bill came out to around two hundred. It's definitely not somewhere that I can go everyday, but it's definitely worth it.

Mirai
2020 W Division
Chicago, IL 60622
(773) 862-8500

Banana in the morning...

Zack buys and eats bananas daily. Inevitably, one or two ripen beyond the point of being able to eat raw. This morning, I decided to make this not-so-healthy breakfast sandwich using an over-ripened banana. It's a variation of the one and only Elvis' favorite sandwich. Just two slices of bread, peanut butter, banana, and crispy bacon. It's a good thing that I've been waking up lately with a healthy appetite. I attribute this to the fact that I'm going to the gym more often. I may have clogged up an artery or two but it delicious.

I can't get enough hummus!

I called Zack after I finished working out and I asked him, "What do you want to do for dinner?" like I do every night. He always answers, "Let's figure it out when you get home" and tonight was no exception. Of course, we never figure it out when I get home and we always end up going to the grocery store hungry and without a plan. That's exactly how things went down tonight. Zack said, "We'll browse and figure it out when we get there."

We walk into Jewel. I picked up a loaf of French bread. Then we walked by some hummus. That's when it hits me! Hummus!! That's one of the reasons I bought my food processor. To make things like hummus. So, I bought some lemons and chickpeas. I couldn't find tahini (or sesame seed paste) there, but was able to find it at Treasure Island. I knew they wouldn't fail me in my time of need.

I got the simple recipe from the Joy of Cooking. I love how easy hummus is to make and how good it tastes. I cut up some cucumbers and radishes to dip into the hummus. I also sliced some French bread for dipping. Yes, yes, I should have bought some pita bread but I really like eating hummus with French bread. Call me crazy! I'll admit that it's not much of a dinner but I could keep eating hummus forever. Very satisfying.

Chocolate-Chunk Oatmeal Cookies with Walnuts and Dried Cranberries

The America's Test Kitchen episode that was on this past weekend featured chewy oatmeal cookies loaded with different ingredients. Naturally, I had to try this out since I'm a big fan of chewy oatmeal cookies. I used this recipe from the America's Test Kitchen website. As suggested, I substituted the pecans with toasted walnuts and the dried cherries with dried cranberries.

Let me just say that these are gigantic cookies! On the show, they used a 16-size ice cream scoop to form each cookie but I used a 1/4 measuring cup instead. Apparently, a 16-size means 16 scoops in a quart of ice cream. Since there's 4 cups in a quart, using the 1/4 measuring cup would be the same size as the 16-size scoop. Did you follow the math?

I only baked two cookies and froze the rest for later. This way I can have them whenever I have the craving. Now, that's what I'm talking about!

Spinach salad with pear and mango

For tonight's dinner, we had the macaroni and cheese leftovers and a simple spinach salad with pear and mango. I tossed the baby spinach leaves and the chopped fruits with a lemon-lime pecorino romano dressing. I adapted my dressing from this Martha Stewart recipe. As you can guess, I used both lemon and lime instead of just lemon and substituted pecorino romano for the parmesan cheese. I also couldn't help putting a squirt of Dijon mustard in the dressing. The pear and mango were perfectly ripe and sweet. It was a very refreshing salad and went well with the rich mac and cheese.

Italian sausage and portabella mushroom mac and cheese

Zack and I went for a walk to the lakeshore and beach before going to the grocery store. We just relaxed and soaked in the afternoon sun for a while and then made a sand castle. I still feel like there's sand all over me even after taking a shower.

For dinner, I turned to Rachel Ray's cookbook Rachel Ray 365: No Repeats for something fast and easy to make. Today I made a variation on her mac and cheese recipes.

I actually fused two of her recipes together. One was a sausage and mushroom polenta "lasagna" and the other was her mac-n-cheddar with broccoli recipe. We had Italian sausage left over in the freezer, so Zack, my sous-chef, sauteed the sausage with some chopped onions and sliced portabella mushrooms. He also cooked the macaroni pasta. I made some roux using flour, milk, heavy cream and chicken stock. After mixing together the roux sauce, cheddar cheese, cooked macaroni, and the sausage mixture, I put this in the oven for about 10 minutes to melt the cheese.

It was yummo, as Rachel Ray would say. Of course, I have plenty left over for lunch tomorrow. I'll be looking forward to that.

Lattice-Topped Rhubarb Pie

I made rhubarb pie for dessert but we actually ended up eating some Skinny Cow cookies 'n cream ice cream sandwiches instead. It really takes a lot of time to make a pie! I used the all-rhubarb pie recipe from the cookbook Pie. It's similar to this Epicurious.com recipe except without the strawberries.

First, I made some pie crust dough with my handy dandy food processor, formed it into two disks and chilled them in the fridge.

Then, I sliced a couple stalks of rhubarb.

I mixed the rhubarb, sugar, orange juice, orange zest, salt and nutmeg together and let it sit for 30 minutes.

After rolling out the chilled dough, I formed the crust and filled the pie dish with the rhubarb mixture.

Then, I rolled out more dough to make pieces to make the lattice crust on top. I pinched the ends together with the bottom crust.

I brushed the top with heavy cream and sprinkled lightly with sugar. I popped this baby in the oven. An hour later, you get a perfectly baked pie!

A buttery sweet smell filled the entire apartment. I could see the filling bubbling when I took it out of the oven. The cookbook instructs you to let the pie rest for three hours. We couldn't wait for the pie to cool so that's why ate the ice cream sandwiches.

We did have a little taste test and it was out of this world. Okay, this is actually my first time to taste rhubarb. The first time I heard of this strange rhizome was in grade school when my friend offered me a piece of rhubarb pie. I had absolutely no idea what it was and chickened out of trying it. So, I have no basis for comparison, but I do know that the pie tasted good. The rhubarb was so soft and tangy. I thought the recipe called for a lot of sugar but it really brings out the flavor of the rhubarb and didn't make the pie too sweet. Delicious!

Grilled Steak with Potato Salad and Grilled Garlic Crostini

Yes! Zack and I bought our very first grill. It's a Weber grill! We even got a discount on it because the one on display was the last one in the store. Ain't she a beauty?

We also bought the matching Weber 3-piece stainless steel tool set including tongs, spatula and fork and some lump charcoal. Naturally, we made tonight's dinner using our newly-acquired grill. We decided on Zack's favorite, steak.

I used this recipe from Epicurious.com for the marinade and the accompanying sauce. Zack is the designated keeper and manager of the grill so he was in charge of marinating and grilling the steak. As you can tell, Zack had technical difficulties operating the grill so he ended up overcooking the meat. Let's just say, it was very well-done. I guess it's not completely due to poor operation of the grill because here is what Zack had to say on the subject: "I just cook meat until it's black, so I have to work on that." Indeed, he does.

I really liked the horseradish cream sauce with the steak. I've never actually bought raw horseradish root before, so I didn't realize how potent it is. The whipped cream balances well with the strong horseradish flavor.

I also made potato salad with roasted peppers using this Epicurious.com recipe. Of course, we grilled the red pepper and some corn on the cob on our new grill. The grilled vegetables gave the salad a delicious smoky flavor.

We also grilled some French bread brushed with olive oil and garlic. I used this Epicurious.com recipe and I think it was too salty.

Overall, I think our first grilling experience turned out great. I'm hoping for better results next time. I'm looking for all the wonderful meals we'll be cooking on the grill this summer. Mmmm... I can't wait!

Sunny Side Up Eggs on Toast with Artichokes and Olives

I promised myself that I would wake up in time to go to the 9am yoga class at my gym. I literally gave myself enough time to get up, get dressed and walk over there.

When I got there, I was too sleepy to realize that I was in the wrong class until the instructor introduced the class as some intense cardio-aerobic workout. I quickly got out of there and stepped into the classroom next door where the yoga class had already started. I walked in to a dimly-light room and the instructor asks loudly, "Is this your first time?" I answered timidly, "Yes, it is." A little bit embarrassing.

To say the least, I had no clue what I was doing. It seemed like most people are regulars and have their own yoga mat and everything. The poses were hard for someone like me with no flexibility and endurance strength. I also had a hard time taking the instructor seriously because she sounded like one of those relaxation tapes. "Channel your energy through rhythmic breathing", "Breathe out the stale air inside and inhale the clean air", etc. I think this sort of thing ain't my bag but I'm willing to give it another chance.

Anyways, here's my reward for trying something new and waking up early to work out. My breakfast: sunny side up eggs on toast with artichokes and kalamata olives. What a way to start off the day! I love breaking the yolk open and sopping up every last bit with my toast.

Spicy Beef Empanadas

Alright. This asparagus is from last night. We decided to have frozen pizza so I thought we should have something healthy along with it. I lightly coated the asparagus with olive oil and tossed with salt and pepper. I baked it at the same time as the pizza and sprinkled lemon juice over them after taking them out of the oven. So simple, yet so delicious.

As for tonight, I really wanted to make some empanadas using this recipe from Everday Food. I knew it would take longer than the usual dinner meal but I geared myself up for it. Of course, before I could do that, I made a little appetizer to hold our hunger over until dinner.

I made guacamole using this simple guacamole recipe from Everday Food. I kept everything the same except for adding diced mango. I didn't add much but enough for a hint of flavor. It gives the guacamole an added sweetness and tartness. Zack and I ate this with some tortilla chips.

For the empanadas, I halved the recipe and made four of them. The filling was easy to make but the dough was really time-consuming and labor-intensive. I realized halfway that it's not worth making on a Tuesday night at 9pm. Oh, but I was determined and the only thing that kept me going was the reward of being able to eat this thing piping hot out of the oven.

The good thing is that I have two pre-made empanadas sitting in the freezer waiting for me tomorrow night. All I have to do is pop those bad boys in the oven. Sweet!